The first day, I counted every rut in the road, every vagrant dandelion tumbling past the carriage wheel.
We left the Bourne lands at sunrise, the house behind us was nothing more than a memory of white stone with my mother's long shadow at the door.
Corwin hummed as he drove, content in the way of men who had once known war and now found the simple act of sitting with their son enough of a victory for one lifetime.
He pointed out every landmark with the patter of a tour guide, but better he remembered the names of things long dead.
"See that bluff? We used to call it Devil's Leap. In spring, the wind up there will shear your hat clean off, so we'd bet pocket change on who could make it to the top and back without losing theirs."
The stories wound around the wagon until the day bent toward gold, and the only thing I had to fear was that my father might run out of recollections before we reached the Sentinel Oak.
We passed it just after noon, a tree so preposterously huge the family had named the entire western border after it.
The trunk was wide as a banquet table, limbs thrown out like an emperor's arms.
Centuries ago, some ancestor had carved the Bourne crest into the bark, and now it was a calcified ridge, stubbornly visible even from the road.
As we rolled beneath it, Corwin knocked the wagon frame twice, for luck.
"Every Bourne who's left the estate has passed under this tree. It's tradition. You knock on wood, and the tree remembers you when you come home."
It's funny he says that because he didn't say what happened to Bournes who never made the return trip.
Knock…knock…
I knocked, just in case.
At night we made camp in the shadow of the foothills, cooking tinned rations over a sputtering blue fire.
Corwin drank nothing stronger than sour cider, but he let me taste it, and I pretended to hate it even though I didn't.
We slept in turns, or pretended to.
He kept his sword within arm's reach, and I kept the wooden practice sword wrapped in a blanket at my feet. I didn't bother with a bedroll—I'd gotten used to sleeping wherever the world set me down.
The second day, the road sloped into the Gilded Vale.
The sun rose and caught the quartz in the stone, scattering light like a prophecy gone to seed.
"This is where the real money used to be, back before the northern mines dried up, every rock-picker and bounty man ended up here. Lot of fortunes made, lot of bones buried just off the road." He said this like it was a pleasant memory, as if history had no teeth.
The Royal Highway was busier than I expected… three merchant trains in as many hours, plus a pair of cloaked riders who paid us no mind.
I watched their hands, their mounts, the way they scanned the tree line.
Not assassins, not bounty hunters. Exiles, maybe, or the kind of men who owed too many debts to live in cities.
Just before dusk, we hit the first real trouble.
A pack of demonic wolves, three at first, then five, emerged from behind a fallen pine with their muzzles frosted and their eyes catching flame from the dying sun.
They moved with that strange motion only wild things had almost lazy, until one blink and they were in striking range.
Although I noticed their presence, Corwin saw them before I did.
He set down his tin cup, rolled his shoulders once, and said only, "Stay behind the fire."
He drew his sword, not like a hero from the stories, but with the tired grace of a man who has spent more years sheathing and unsheathing than he cares to count.
The first wolf tested the circle of blue flame, then veered, flanking.
RAH!
Slash!
Corwin matched its movement carefully tracking it and with a level cut he split the animal collarbone to belly.
Its corpse hit the ground with a wet thud, and the others thought better of a frontal assault.
I watched carefully as my father stepped between me and the death that had crept out of the trees.
He wasn't the best swordsman, not by a long shot.
But I realized, watching him, that what he lacked in technique he made up for in stubborn precision. Every move had a purpose.
Every feint was just enough, no more.
As the pack circled, two in the brush and the last circling wide.
I could hear every single thing… their breathing, the crack of twigs and Corwin's own measured panting.
I thought about the training I'd done every solitary hour controlling to limit my flux but tonight, I was the bystander.
If I had decided to step in, I could have ended it in a heartbeat.
But letting it out even a glimmer of the real me slip would be the end of all this.
I'd never see another sunrise behind a wagon wheel. I'd never have a quiet talk over supper with my father. I knew the stakes were so small, they became everything.
Whoosh!
He killed the last two with the same efficiency. No wasted energy, no celebration.
When it was over, he wiped his blade on the hem of his own jacket, then looked up and saw me still standing.
"First kill's always the worst," he said.
"You did good, not panicking."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that it took every ounce of discipline I had not to step in because I knew he wasn't any kind of pushover, so I just nodded and tried to look brave.
The rest of the night, Corwin cleaned the sword and set it by his bedroll.
I sat up with the wooden blade, running my fingers along the dents and splinters.
It was too light and the balance was all wrong.
Of course it was a child's stick, nothing more, but I made the motions anyway, burning the forms into muscle that already remembered how it was supposed to feel.
In the morning, Corwin caught me at it.
He leaned against the wagon, arms crossed, watching as I finished the last cut.
"Thinking of becoming a swordsman after all?" he said, grinning with a lopsided pride that made him look ten years younger.
"Not much call for healers these days."
He laughed, genuine, the sound echoing up the empty valley.
"Try not to shame your old man, eh?"
We broke camp before sunrise and rolled into Gilded Vale while the moon still hung on the horizon.
There were other travelers now. A merchant wagon, painted green and gold, trundled along a few hundred yards ahead.
Two elderly men walked along the road with their heads bent together in a heated debate.
They paused to let us pass, waving a hand and shouting a warning about "deadfalls by the river."
I watched their hands. Neither had weapons, but both carried themselves like they'd used them before.
Around noon, we stopped at a crossroads post to water the horses. There was a stone marker there, listing the distance to the capital and the price of bread for the season. Corwin took a moment to read it, then traced his finger along the carved numbers.
"Three more days if the weather holds," he said.
I glanced at the sky. Clear and flat as glass. "It'll hold."
He shot me a look, like he wanted to ask how I knew, but thought better of it.
The next stretch was downhill.
The wind picked up, cold and sharp enough that it burned the lungs.
The wagon creaked and complained, but Corwin coaxed it along with low, soothing words, as if the wood and iron could understand.